Momo's Arc

Chapter 1 of 3

The boy with violet hair lay face-down in the crystal moss, and he did not wake when the ground hummed beneath him. Momo had crossed the Crystal Forest chasing a power he could not yet name. Twice that week he had felt it: a heat in his left arm, where a dragon was inked across the skin, and a cold light that answered from somewhere behind his ribs. He wanted to command both. He wanted to be the strongest warrior in all of Heartvelle. Instead he lay still, his tail limp in the glowing grass, breath shallow, blood drying at his temple. Footsteps crunched over the crystal. A woman knelt beside him. She was small, with white hair past her waist and long pointed ears. A blue staff glowed in her hand, its crystal head bright as a moon. This was Elmyra, a mage who read the night sky for a living and trusted it more than people. She pressed two fingers to Momo's throat. The pulse was weak. "You're a long way from anyone who loves you," she said. "That makes two of us." She raised the staff. Blue light poured from the crystal and sank into the wound at his temple. The bleeding slowed. But as the light touched his left arm, the dragon tattoo flared red, and a dark heat pushed back against her magic. Elmyra's eyes widened. She had healed many broken things. She had never felt one fight her like this. Two powers lived in this boy. One shone cold and clean, like her own moon-light. The other burned, hungry and wrong. They pulled at each other inside him, and the pulling was killing him. Elmyra could leave him. A half-demon thing in a child's body was no one's safe choice. She looked at his face instead. His brow twitched, fighting even while unconscious. "All right," she whispered. "Stubborn. I can work with stubborn." She planted the staff and pressed her palm flat on his chest. Blue light spread through him in a slow wave. She did not burn out the dark heat. She wrapped around it, held it still, and gave the two powers a wall to rest against. Sweat ran down her face. The forest crystals rang like struck glass. Then, at last, Momo breathed deep and even. His eyes opened. Violet hair stuck to his cheek. He blinked up at a stranger with a glowing stick and a tired smile. "Easy," Elmyra said. "You died a little. I talked you out of it." Momo's tail flicked once. "Who are you?" "Someone who just learned you carry two kinds of fire." She stood and offered her hand. "They want to tear you apart. I can teach you to hold them. But not here." He took her hand. From that grip, a new life began: a son raised by a moon mage, and a long road toward mastering the powers that nearly killed him on the forest floor.